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Sunday, February 12, 2012

Lovikka Mittens from Three Bags Full - Day 1

Ah, mittens.

I love them, really I do. They feel so much friendlier than gloves to me. Mittens keep our fingers together in cozy codependency, which makes them warmer then gloves, where it’s every digit for themselves.

I must confess, my last pair of mittens--the gorgeous Winter Wonder mitts from FiberWild! was an artistic success, but not a practical one. Mostly because I’ve never finished the second one. I need to, because I love them and I’m proud of them. That mitten’s singularity makes starting this pair from Three Bags Full feel a bit, well, adulterous. Which is ridiculous. It’s yarn, not a relationship.

The whole thing reminds me of this satirical IKEA commercial:

I admit, I fell for it...feeling sad for a desk lamp left out in the rain. “You’re crazy--It has no feelings!” says the guy with the harsh accent. That’s what I keep telling myself as I cast on the cuff of this mitten. Still, I feel the abandoned mitten’s sad alpaca fuzziness mocking me from the “unfinished projects” drawer.

“You need too much attention” I retort, “I can’t knit you in meetings and busy places.”

If you cared enough to finish what you started, you’d make time, taunts the mitten.

“I want to start these nifty new ones,” I defend.

You felt that way about me once, too, pouts the mitten.

“I’ll get to you, you fibrous nag,” I sneer, ignoring how long it’s been (which is almost a year).

I start rummaging through my circular needle collection to see if I’ve got the right tool to cast on two of these at a time, just to make myself feel better. Of course, I don’t, and I refuse to let this petulant earlier mitten add unnecessary expense to its current sin of guilting me out.